Why Afghanistan fell to Taliban so swiftly: America hired militias, says report

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 prompting the sudden and dramatic exit of the US military, Donald Trump blamed Joe Biden for the “disaster” and Biden, in turn, criticised the Afghan military for giving so easily.

Now, an investigative report by the New York Times has found that Washington had laid the groundwork for “its defeat long before the Afghan soldiers laid down their arms.”

The report claims that America had been recruiting, training and paying militias to help its forces fight off the Taliban as they inched closer to taking over Afghanistan. However, these militias were known for torturing innocent Afghan people by killing them in vendetta, razing entire villages and kidnapping them for ransom.

Northern Afghanistan, which was the first to fall, was the region where these hirings began. NYT conducted over 50 interviews in Kunduz that show " how American support for the militias spelled disaster, not just in the province but also across the rest of northern
Afghanistan."

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How the militias grew in power

The US had started recruiting militias during the early years of its war in Afghanistan. It planned to capitalise on local resistance to the Taliban by training groups of men and often creating armed forces under the garb of police.

Most of these efforts proved problematic. Militias quickly became too powerful to disarm. Although they fought against the Taliban, they spent even more time battling one another, creating the chaotic civil war conditions that had originally enabled the Taliban’s rise to power in the 1990s.

Frustrated by the predatory behaviour of these militias, some Afghans began viewing the Taliban as protectors and eventually joined the insurgency.

Afghan govt loses control

With the growing animosity toward the militias, the US Embassy in Kabul sent a diplomatic cable to the States in 2009 urging the government to control the rise of militias. By then, the Afghan government had no power over the militias who continued their atrocities on local people.

NYT spoke to the families who fell victim to the horrors meted out by the militias. They reported that forced conscription was widespread. Men who refused to join a militia were often killed, while those who declined to pay taxes faced accusations of supporting the Taliban and were frequently imprisoned.

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“The militias would label anyone they didn’t like ‘Taliban’, and then abuse them so much they had no choice but to join the Taliban,” said Mohammad Farid, a shopkeeper who said he was imprisoned for refusing to pay to one of the militia leaders.

Although the Americans did not orchestrate the abuse, they provided the government with billions of dollars in cash and weapons, which officials used to recruit and arm militias. To the villagers, this appeared to be an American initiative, making the Taliban increasingly seem like a more appealing alternative.

Militias join Taliban

The tables turned soon and the situation transpired into a chaotic time that cost both the American forces and the Afghan government.

After assuming office in 2014, former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani vowed to tackle the militia problem with America by his side. However, the militias, who were now maligned in public, shifted their hatred toward the Afghan government and even began joining the Taliban, the group they once fought against.

Sensing an opportunity, Taliban commanders began secretly contacting militia leaders, spreading distrust by claiming that the government saw them as enemies.

“The split between the militias was crucial for us,” said Hesmatullah Zalmay, a Taliban commander in Kunduz.

What happened after US left?

After the US forces left and the Afghan military laid down their weapons in 2021, some of the most infamous warlords and criminals responsible for the suffering in Kunduz and other regions – who ultimately aided the Taliban more than they opposed them–disappeared without facing a final battle or trial.